Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel filling system and a fuel filling method thereof.
Related Art
Fuel cell vehicles travel by supplying oxygenated air and hydrogen to the fuel cell, and driving an electric motor using the electric power thereby generated. In recent years, progress has been made in the practical implementation of fuel cell vehicles employing such fuel cells as the energy source for generating motive power. Although hydrogen is required to generate electric power by fuel cells, with the fuel cell vehicles of recent years, vehicles have become mainstream that store a sufficient amount of hydrogen in advance in a high-pressure tank or a hydrogen tank equipped with a storage alloy, and use the hydrogen inside of the tank to travel. In concert with this, vigorous research has progressed also in the technology designated as so-called communicative filling for quickly filling the required amount of hydrogen into the tank.
Communicative filling is technology that sends information related to a hydrogen tank to a station as a data signal using some kind of communication means from the vehicle side, and fills fuel using information received at the station. Sensors that detect the temperature and/or pressure of the hydrogen gas inside the hydrogen tank, for example, are provided to the hydrogen tank. From the vehicle side, information related to the temperature and/or pressure of the hydrogen tank based on the outputs of these sensors (hereinafter, this information related to the temperature, pressure, etc. of the hydrogen tank is collectively referred to as tank state information) is sent to the station side. The station side controls the filling flowrate under the filling control laws made using the acquired tank state information, with the goal of refilling as quickly as possible.
Patent Document 1 illustrates technology for verifying whether the information sent from the vehicle side is correct. With the method of Patent Document 1, the predicted temperature of fuel inside the hydrogen tank after initial filling is calculated based on physical information of the hydrogen gas emitted from the station into the vehicle during initial filling, this predicted temperature is compared with the actual temperature of fuel inside the hydrogen tank sent from the vehicle after the initial filling, and in the case of these greatly deviating, it is judged that abnormality occurred in the temperature sensor on the vehicle side, and measures are taken such as reducing the filling flowrate, stopping, and informing of the abnormality.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2011-122657